


Bergamot

by caffeineivore



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Fluff and Angst, One Shot, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 13:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16305842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caffeineivore/pseuds/caffeineivore
Summary: They say that smell is the strongest of the five senses... V/K-ish vignette. Complete.





	Bergamot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dutchesscourtney](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dutchesscourtney/gifts).



They say that smell is the strongest of the senses, Minako thinks, swiping sweaty blonde hair out of (occasionally red-masked) blue eyes. You may not remember what a person’s face looked like, or the things they said five months (or a thousand years, under eerie silver light) ago. You may not recall whether there were bird calls or honking car horns in the background, or whether it was hot or cold outside. But you will always remember the smells.

At this very moment she smells the fading scent of honeysuckle lotion cut with sweat and adrenaline– herself, volleyball practice, where her dodges and attacks are increasingly fast and aggressive– after all, what’s a round piece of white rubber weighing less than half a kilogram compared to a demonically-possessed two-ton piece of machinery brought to life by evil forces and set to destroy a city? She’s honeysuckle lotion and sweat and adrenaline, sometimes sharpened with the salty scent that comes from junk food but never tears, sometimes sweetened with the candy-floss scent of red lipstick that almost always smudges and sparkly nail polish that almost always chips. 

She has not known the other girls long, not in this life, but there’s a familiarity in their scents, too. Ami is the squeaky clean scent of chlorinated cool blue swimming pool water and the pleasant mellowness of water lilies and old leatherbound books interrupted (like a ripple) with something sharp– the pristine plastic of late-model electronics, the tang of seashells that wash onto a beach. Rei is deeper, sultrier, her dark hair always carrying hints of sandalwood incense and hearth smoke, her manicured fingers faintly tinged with calligraphy ink and old cedar. Makoto is homey– the comforting scent of buttered, freshly baked bread and the unassuming sweetness of cinnamon and cocoa, and yet there’s something unyielding underneath, fresh and damp and a bit weathered like the scent of a forest after a thunderstorm. Usagi, bless her pure little heart, is the buttercream scent of vanilla icing and the sweetness of summer strawberries tucked into ice cream. Unlike the rest of them, she’s one note– sweet– and Minako would die before she’d let her princess lose it. 

She remembers other scents, too. Blood smells like copper in and of itself, but in large amounts, profusely pouring or spurting from mortal wounds, it stinks like meat about to go bad. Fires set for destruction rather than warmth smells like sulphur. Rubble and ruins smell like chalk dust and mould. 

But it’s another scent altogether which elicits the most visceral response of all.

It’s something subtle. She accidentally grabs the wrong to-go cup of tea at a cafe– someone’s plain old Earl Grey rather than her own heavily-sugared chai latte, and almost drops the whole thing on her foot after one sip. It’s just tea– plain black tea with something slightly lemony-smelling, but the scent hits her like a fist where one might expect a caress. 

(And where did _that_ metaphor come from?)

After that first whiff, she starts noticing it (responding to it) in other places. A tester bottle of expensive cologne in a department store. A box of Turkish delight given to her parents as a present for a holiday. Something citrusy– pleasant smelling, really– but her reaction to it makes no sense at all. A blush and a shudder. Heat in the most inappropriate places, followed by a shiver of what could possibly be fear.

And then comes the day that all of them face with the last and greatest of the Dark Kingdom’s generals. He’s taller than the rest, with a forbidding face (even for an enemy), silvery hair which falls straight as rain to brush his broad shoulders, and a billowing cape, which marks his superior rank to the ones who came before. He’s cold and calculated and terrifyingly efficient, and when the time comes to face him head-on, Minako’s the one who strides forward, knowing that it’s her duty to do so, shoulders back against the bracing wind of Tokyo’s night and the chill of Kunzite’s eyes. That cape flutters in the wind, and the scent of its folds, carried by the breeze, almost stops her in her path. 

_A sultry night. A grove of trees, bearing greenish-yellow fruit. A villa with a courtyard and a walled garden where a man and woman laughed and made love and pretended, for just a few moments, that they were just another couple in love, without responsibilities, without duties, without the dire consequences of their charges’ transgressions crushing them down. A warm hand sliding through her hair. Her face nuzzled into the smooth skin of his neck. His skin smells like the air around them._

“Bergamot. He always smelled like bergamot. Those in his kingdom used the oils to scent their washing-water.” 

Minako knows that she doesn’t have time to confront the demon that finally has a face and a name. She grits her teeth and readies her attack even as her heart breaks a little bit inside, and there’s almost a hint of meat-copper-blood marring the scent of honeysuckle lotion and sweat and adrenaline. But anything is better than the scent of bergamot which clings, even now, to Kunzite’s skin.

*

Another thousand years and countless battles and scars and meat-copper-blood smells later, Princess Venus stands in the gleaming tower of the crystalline main hall, bolt-upright, carrying the heavy stone sword of her birthright as four men take a knee before the King. 

It’s a jumble of half-familiar half-forgotten scents– the androgynous but sweet fragrance of French lavender, the bracing smell of North American wintergreen, the warm, arid aroma of Indian cloves. And, of course, Turkish bergamot. King Endymion holds out his hand to Kunzite first, and raises the latter to his feet. Though Kunzite towers over his monarch by a good half a head, he does not raise his eyes, keeping his head lowered perhaps in respect or perhaps in repentance or perhaps in a combination of the two. Venus, who no longer goes by Minako, can’t quite gaze into his eyes. She’s fairly sure he’s not ready for that, at any rate.

But the scent of bergamot no longer scares her now. She relaxes her stance a fraction, lowers the sword held in both hands, and watches as the man in front of her flicks his gaze just for the briefest moment in her direction. She lets herself smile, just for a moment.

His jaw unclenches. He doesn’t quite return her smile, but finally, he lets his eyes meet hers, for a moment as brief as her smile. 

It’s the start of something. And in the air between them, she picks up the scent of something new, something unfamiliar.

She wonders if it’s what hope smells like.


End file.
